Over a 25-year-long acquaintance with Phillips, Guarlnick also interviews Ike Turner, Howlin’ Wolf, Rufus Thomas, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis to color Sun Records. I said, I’ve got to have this little laboratory, I got to have it, it’s just absolutely, I’ve gotta have it!” I was so committed in my mind, not to be a damn crusader, I guess ‘explorer’ is a better word.
Had I not tried, I would have been the biggest damn coward that God ever put on this earth. I don’t have any money, but I know I can build it with my own hands.’ I couldn’t not do it, not attempt to do it. And all of these elements resonated for, I would say, maybe a year and a half, and I wouldn’t let myself think about it, as much as I wanted to - but then I said, ‘I’ve just got to open me a little recording studio, where I can at least experiment with (some of) this overlooked humanity.
These were elements that I knew were not going away. Memphis was the inducement - I mean, going out and hearing a black man pick a guitar and pat his foot and put a wood box under his foot to pat as he sings. Phillips grew up steeped in the church and was encouraged to be a preacher he also worked in a funeral home and a candy store, delivered bread and worked as a DJ and had his own radio shows on his path to Sun Records … and all along the way identified with the common people, the less fortunate … and with his golden ear, could hear the gift of a true God-given talent.įrom his musings: “My conviction was that the world was missing out on not having heard what I had heard as a child. Guralnick, leaves no stone unturned in his examination of the life and times of this American icon. I found myself entertained, from beginning to end.įrom his formative years in Florence, Alabama (just across the Tennessee River from Muscle Shoals), to his induction in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, the experiences and observations that shaped Sam Phillips also gave him the vision to change music history forever. I encourage all music lovers and anyone curious about extraordinary people to read this book, for it truly delivers a relic of a story. The subtitle, however, is a mere scratching of the surface of the gems to be mined from this weighty volume.
The subtitle alone - “How One Man Discovered Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley” - should be enough to entice any music lover to indulge in Peter Guarlnick’s latest offering “Sam Phillips: The Man who Invented Rock ‘N’ Roll” (Little, Brown and Company).
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